Empty Nest Syndrome – Knitting my way through it.

For all of my adult life I’ve been a mum, I had Dina before I was old enough to vote and if we’re being honest, I’ve grown up with my kids, the older two especially. You’d be forgiven for thinking, that I probably never had a chance to leave home before my children came along, but that’s not the case. I’d already been living ‘independently’, on and off for about two years, before I had Dina (whole different story and something akin to an Eastenders plot line).

Anyway, it’s fair to say the kids, Dina, Durahn and for the last 15 years – Malakye, have been my constant companions. Dina left home, a while ago now and Du, did move to Cork City for the Summer, but he came back, only to leave ‘proper’ last week. He’s headed off to Dublin, the big schmoke and if this wasn’t bad enough, Dina will actually be moving to Brighton in three weeks 😦 So in the space of a few weeks, both of my adult children will have left home – for good. They may well return, but it will only be because they need to ‘get their head down for a few days’ or ‘save a few bob’. In my heart I know they’ve gone and I also know they’re ready.

I’m sad though, a little hollow feeling is there at the moment. Truth be told, I think I’m mourning their innocence. It’s so much easier to look after them when their smaller younger, you know if they’re happy or sad, if they’ve been sleeping, what they’ve been eating and you can make sure they’re warm, safe and protected. I’d be wearing some seriously good rose tinted spectacles, if I made out that was always easy, because it wasn’t. There were times, particularly when my kids were small, that my life seemed like something out of the 1800’s, but we’re a resilient bunch.

Being a mother of two adult children, means I’m always going to be there, but it’s very different and it’s something I have to work at every day. Watching them experience hardships and heartbreaks, knowing you either can’t help, or shouldn’t, is incredibly difficult.

Unfortunately for Kye, it means I have far more time on my hands to stick my nose into what he’s up to and he’s a very different teenager to his siblings. Sadly, he’s feeling the loss of his big bro quite a bit too at the moment. The pair of them are extremely close – annoyingly so sometimes. We’ll ajust though, I’m sure and in the meantime……

Kye and I decided to get a care package together for Du and send it up to Dublin for a laugh. It contains several necessary items, that he may not realise he needs.

Teabags (nothing worse than no tea)

Custard Creams (still his favourite after all these years and they have to be Tesco’s?)

Tissues (you know he’ll forget)

Toffee Crisps

A mug

A couple of face flannels

Scented candle

Hand cream (he’s always using mine)

Tampons

New Home/New Job Greetings Card

New knitted hat

Yes you did read that correctly, a few rows up, I said tampons. It’s an ongoing joke between the boys at the moment and having mentioned it here, should any young lady discover them – there are four men living in the house, they can, in all honesty say they were from us 😉

The hat is his usual one, by Erika Knight. I used the Brooklyn Tweed Shelter that I purchased in The Constant Knitter a while back now. The shade is called sweatshirt and it’s pretty true to life in the photograph above.

The Shelter is a lovely soft tweed yarn, with little neps here and there, it’s made from the fibre of the Targhee-Columbia Sheep.. I was mindful of how fragile the yarn is as it’s woollen spun and known to break easily. Whilst knitting it, I was a little more careful than I would be usually, not to pull great lengths off the ball/cake at once, but it never broke. The same can’t be said about sewing the hat up, thankfully it was only the one, short seam. However, it’s very hard to sew up using mattress stitch, without giving the strand a little tug, to ensure your stitches are nice and even. Despite, my best efforts, I managed to break the yarn several times.

The hat does look lovely though and Du is happy with how it feels and the fit, which is good to know as I still have 12g of the hank left. The hat only took 97metres/106yards in total and I’ve another full hank too, so perhaps I’ll knit another?

Photographing the same hat flat, probably doesn’t do it justice. You can get a bit of a better idea of the shape from this photo. (Apologies on the choice of model, it’s literally all I could find.)

At least you can better see, why Du likes this style so much. You can roll the brim up so it sits on above the ears, or down to keep your ears warm.

Hats are quick knits though, so to take my mind off my emptier nest, I’ve been wiring into my Vitamin D Cardigan and can happily report the first set of short rows on the body,are complete. Those German Short rows are almost invisible.

I’m also working on the crochet blanket, so Dina can take it with her and I’m about to go and cake this lovely hank up now. I’ll tell you more about what it will become soon.

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3 thoughts on “Empty Nest Syndrome – Knitting my way through it.”

I don’ t know if I should share this anecdote with you, it’ll either make you laugh or cry!!! But Eoghan wants us to go on Long Lost Families to “get Shauna back”!!😱I’ve told him she’s not lost, just a grown up and doesn’t live with us anymore 😭 Needless to say his 6 year old brain is still trying to figure it out …………. 😃😃😃

Oh bless, I’m not sure I hold out much hope of him understanding it anytime soon babes, as Kye is still confused by the whole thing. If Dina comes home for the night, he gets all excited, says hello and then goes back into the office and plays his Xbox. I think I could convince him she was here, even if he didn’t see her. Now that’s a thought 😉